Scientific American's April 2014 issue and Discover's April 2014 issue

If you’re excited by the new weekly Fox “Cosmos” series, and the latest discoveries about the Big Bang, it’s time to curl up with these mags.

Scientific American’s cover story, “Cosmic Dawn,” examines the question of when and how light first appeared in the universe. The Big Bang created a Big Fog, and why those dark ages ended is an intriguing astronomical question. There’s a feature on how one line of early humans — homo sapiens — might have won out over other types because they were meat eaters while another humanoid strain developed big jaws to munch on grass. A feature on how RNA might lead to more genetic discoveries than DNA makes for a well-rounded magazine.

Discover also asks when the stars first lit up the sky. Problem is their story reads too much like a profile of an astrophysicist, and does not come to life. Astrophysicist Avi Loeb grades the Bible’s genesis story. “The insight that the Universe has a beginning is very impressive,” he says. “But the subsequent details are flawed.” A feature on how the closest black hole sometimes awakens and sends out beams of light as bright as 1 million suns is somewhat illuminating. The rest of the mag is what we might call dark matter.

Popular Science, meanwhile, is fine if you have attention scientific article deficit disorder. Mostly, it is full of pictures surrounded by short news items. Wonder how to turn an empty beer can into a camera, or how to best pitch a knuckle wiffle ball? Well, this is “popular” science, after all. Fitting in with the theme is a pictorial about the new Formula E electric car racing circuit.

If you like car reviews, we recommend Popular Mechanics. Comedian Jay Leno pens an article on his love for old British motorcycles. He owns six. There are also reviews of cargo vans, which are becoming more modern and smaller. The cover story is on Chris Anderson, who quit his day job to build a drone factory. Kudos for a pictorial on 25 leaders of the new industrial revolution, like Anderson, with small profiles of each.

In this week’s New Yorker, Kobe Bryant has some advice for aspiring basketball legends who, he believes, have become increasingly underappreciated: Be an a—hole. “I grew up with role models that were a—holes,” Bryant says, citing Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Charles Barkley as prime examples. “I mean, you know, in a very competitive, fun way … These younger generations, it freaks ’em out a little bit.” To that point, there’s a nice profile of Joseph Stalin’s daughter, who fled to the US in 1967. During his life, her father, among other things, sent one of her boyfriends to a labor camp in the Arctic Circle.

New York slaps Lou Reed on its cover, looking rather fabulous circa 1975, to celebrate “a century of pop music in New York.” There’s plenty to celebrate, and inside is a wealth of photos and essays on greats from Al Jolson and the Gershwins to Blondie and the Talking Heads. We especially enjoyed the “ghost map” of famous New York nightclubs where the legends were created, although it’s a bit depressing to learn that the Savoy Ballroom is now a Rent-a-Center, and Max’s Kansas City has become a Bread & Butter, and the Fillmore East is now Emigrant Savings Bank.

Secretary of State John Kerry tut-tutted that Russia’s virtual annexation of Crimea was “19th Century behavior in the 21st Century.” “Well,” retorts Thomas Kaplan in a refreshingly candid and sensible essay in Time, “the 19th Century lives on and always will.” Ukraine “can become a prosperous civil society, but because of its location it will always require a strong and stable relationship with Russia.” Hopefully, the human cataclysms of the 20th century won’t be repeated. “But the worldwide civil society that the elites thought they could engineer is a chimera.” We would agree that this world doesn’t need another Stalin, and it doesn’t need another Neville Chamberlain, either.